A voltage controlled oscillator (“VCO”) has a natural frequency of operation. However, this natural frequency of operation may be different from a frequency of operation of a reference frequency signal, such as for example a reference clock signal. In some applications, this frequency offset may induce a static phase offset (“SPO”) at the output of a clock generation block. A conventional phase-frequency detector (“PFD”) can attempt to lock to both frequency and phase of such a reference clock signal. However, a problem may result in situations where phase locking is not required or necessary due to contention. Accordingly, it would be useful to provide a signal that is independent of phase for such situations.